Skip to main content
Software Engineering

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

Required fields*

8
  • 1
    On that note, watch out for Javascript when handling user input. parseInt(011)==9 Commented Aug 5, 2011 at 0:01
  • 3
    That's really interesting about the Yuki and Pamean. It just occurred to me that hexadecimal finger counting is reasonably easy, if you use the inside of each finger, using some variation, like this Commented Aug 5, 2011 at 1:28
  • 3
    +1 for a very comprehensive answer. Grace Hopper once said she had troubles balancing her checkbook, because she had become so proficient at adding in octal. Commented Aug 5, 2011 at 3:47
  • 15
    @detly, if I know I need to count large numbers I'll use my 10 digits as bits and count to 1024 with just my fingers (just be careful who you show #4, #128 & #132 to). Commented Aug 5, 2011 at 13:32
  • 2
    @Darien For posterity, this isn't going to be an issue if you're parsing user input from strings: parseInt('011') still returns 11. parseInt(011) returns 9 trivially because the interpreter processes the octal 011 into the integer 9 first, then hands the integer to the parseInt() function, which just returns its input when handed an integer. Commented Dec 13, 2019 at 15:15